


Slow Dance

by devovere



Series: Intimacies [6]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Episode: s02e25 Resolutions, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Long Live Feedback Comment Project, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 20:39:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14457312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devovere/pseuds/devovere
Summary: Kathryn and Chakotay reminisce in the bathtub and dance in the shelter.





	Slow Dance

**Author's Note:**

> Heartfelt thanks to beta-readers Killermanatee and Klugtiger, who have fixing my writing problems down to a science by now.

Five days into our new relationship, we already had new routines. Taking a bath together after dinner was one of them, and I wasn’t missing my solitary baths at all. Not with Chakotay’s … conversational skills … to keep them entertaining.

“That’s so funny. We attended the Academy almost ten years apart. I can’t believe we had so many professors in common.” We’d discovered, in short order, that Professor Olafson had told the same jokes, verbatim, in both of our introductory transporter theory classes, and that Professor Hahn had terrified each of us into dropping statistical mechanics.  

“I guess Starfleet instructors never die … they just -- “

“-- get put in stasis,” I finished, rolling my eyes at the old joke. “Come on, most of them were really dedicated.”

“I’d be the last one to disagree with you, seeing as I went back there eighteen years later to teach.” He nuzzled the side of my neck as I leaned back against him and drew his arms around my waist.

“True … oh my gosh, does that mean some of your colleagues -- “ I clapped a hand over my mouth, giggling like the schoolgirl I’d never been back then.

“-- had taught me as a cadet?” He rested his chin on top of my head briefly. “Oh yes. There weren't many of them by then, but they said it made them feel shockingly old.”

“I’ll bet it did. Like how we would feel if we were still on _Voyager_ when Naomi Wildman gets her commission … can you imagine?” Naomi had been just weeks old when we'd been stranded here. I bit back regret at the knowledge we'd never see her grow up.

“Well, don’t forget she’s half-Ktarian. Ktarians mature a lot faster than humans.”

“They do? Then why was poor Sam pregnant for … fifteen months, wasn’t it? Goodness.”

“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations, I suppose,” he replied, untroubled.

“Mmmm, the catch-all response to things even a Vulcan can’t explain logically.”

We both chuckled and then were silent for a time. Apparently, though, he wasn’t done reminiscing about the Academy.

“Well, we’ve gone through dorms and professors. What about the social life?” He unwrapped me to stroke an arm on one side, caress an ear on the other.

“What social life?” I replied in a wry voice.

“You never went to Marinate on a Saturday night? How about The Golden Gateau?”

“Oh, my roommate would drag me out about once a term. She was always trying to get me to relax. She set me up on blind dates, but the last one was such a disaster she never tried again.”

He chuckled, sounding not at all chagrined by my youthful celibacy. “Maybe Cue & Cards? You must have learned to shoot pool _somewhere_.”

“Not as a cadet. I was busy.” My own hands had wandered underwater to his strongly muscled thighs on either side of my body. He flexed them unconsciously, and I felt a stirring low behind me.

“Okay, but what about the all-school dances?”

“What about them?” I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t tell me you never went to those? They were all but mandatory.”

“Oh, I went. I just didn’t find them memorable. Always the same scene. What did you like about them?”

“Well, for starters, the dancing.”

“You like to dance? You never mentioned it.” I was amused.

“Somehow I guess it never came up in conversation with the Kazon,” he answered, with a tinge of grimness in his voice.

“Or during our resource utilization planning meetings,” I parried. Then, trying to keep the mood light, “We should have held dances on _Voyager_ , though.”

He rallied; I felt his mouth curve into a smile against my shoulder. “I’m surprised Neelix never suggested it. Maybe Talaxians don’t dance.”

At that I couldn’t suppress another giggle, imagining a hall full of Neelixes doing the conga.

“What about you? You don’t like to dance?” His hand found a knee and started inching upward.

“I didn’t say that.” I could afford to play a bit coy. I knew where this was leading.

“Then what was so awful about the Academy dances?” His other hand trailed lightly down the side of my neck and along my collarbone to cup a shoulder.

“Oh, you know. I was very serious about my studies, determined to avoid dating. Those things were pretty much open season on the unattached cadets.”

“So too many young men tried to hit on you?” he murmured, sounding rather intrigued by the notion.

“And young women, I’ll have you know.” I tried to put an air of worldly-wise sophistication into my voice.

“Oh really?” His breath was hot on the back of my neck. “And you never said yes to any of them? Just for one night?”

I shook my head, suddenly embarrassed. “For a woman who’s been engaged to be married twice, I’m not really all that experienced.” I guess I couldn’t play the part of the seductress very convincingly after all.

He reached my breast, teasing and rolling, making me gasp. “You know I’m not worried about that, Kathryn.” His voice was warm honey, low in my ear, rumbling in his chest behind me. Then he shifted me up and forward. “And I will do my best to offer any … _experiences_ you’d like to try, now or in the future.”

I clung to the sides of the tub and tilted my hips back, seeking him.

He clarified, quite needlessly. “Well, maybe not lesbian sex.”

I moaned as he slid into me. “Furthest thing from my mind right now, to tell you the truth…”

His hand moved unerringly from belly to clit. We stopped talking then.

\-----

Some time later, we were back in the shelter getting ready for bed … or at least, I thought we were. I was still in my towel -- nightgowns having become a thing of the past somehow -- brushing out my hair. Chakotay spoke my name and I smiled without turning around. He liked to watch me do just about anything with my hair, and I thought he might be about to approach me,  ask for the brush, and take over the job.

Then he said, “Would you put this on, please?”

I turned to find him fully dressed, in his best shirt, holding out a dress I didn’t recognize.

He swallowed and explained in an almost apologetic voice, “I replicated it just now. Will you wear it?”

“Of course, if you want me to. But -- now?”

“There’s something I want us to do.”

I took the garment from him and went behind the partition to our dressing area, where our few clothes were stored.

When I emerged, his jaw dropped in a very gratifying way. I wore neither shoes nor make-up, but I’d piled my hair up, with a few wisps down to soften the look, and the dress -- well, the dress spoke for itself, I suppose. Black, long, a hint of cling and another of drape. I knew my arms looked good in this sleeveless number, but his eyes were clearly drawn to the deep v-neck and the swell of my breasts on either side of it.

Habit had me blushing and folding my arms over my chest. “Oh no,” he said. “None of that, if you please.” His voice held the low rough timbre of slow-burn arousal that set my own blood simmering again, while his dark eyes promised to make some as yet unnamed fantasy come true. I slowly lowered my arms, and faced him with my shoulders back and breath quickening. Then I turned around and presented him with a half-done zipper.

He hummed appreciatively and walked to stand very close behind me. His large hands rested warm and firm on my nearly bare shoulders, and I was emphatically reminded of a certain neck rub that had had cataclysmic results in the still very recent past. I shivered and bit my lip, swallowing a moan.

His lips brushed the nape of my neck, and for a moment I thought he might skip the preliminaries and just get me _out_ of the dress. But then I felt a tug in the middle of my back as he seized the zipper pull. His fingers went first, tracing along my skin in a feather-light touch, slowly drawing the zipper upward. .

“Goosebumps,” he said. “Are you cold?”

I shook my head silently, not trusting my voice.

He had the computer dim the lights and start playing mellow background music, the sort that serves mainly as an excuse to hold someone close and sway back and forth … which is exactly what we proceeded to do, very slowly circling the room.

“Oh, this is _so_ nice,” I said, the music and motion and musky smell of him all filling my senses.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it too,” he whispered, and kissed my temple.

After a time he said, “I wish I could have taken you to one of those dances.” He nuzzled an ear and pulled me closer.

“You might not have liked me then,” I pointed out. “I wasn’t much fun to be around.”

“I’m not here for fun,” he replied, sounding at once utterly serious and lost in fantasy.

 _You shouldn’t be here at all_ , I thought, and then I was remembering the events that had led to our stranding. What decisions I might have made differently, to protect him, to keep him with the ship. _Oh, but then I would have been left here alone_ , and the thought made me shudder.

As I silently pressed my face against his chest, he shifted a hand on my back and said, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking … that I really am a terrible person.” My grip on his waist tightened, but his feet stopped moving.

He took a deep breath and released it slowly, as if to steady himself. “You’re thinking about Mark.” His voice was so even, so patient.

“No,” I answered immediately. “No, I was thinking about you.”

His body’s relaxation was so subtle I would have missed it if most of me hadn’t been pressed so close against him. “Tell me,” he murmured, and started us swaying again.

“I was thinking how glad I am that you got the virus too,” I confessed. “That you had to stay here, with me.”

I didn’t know he was smiling until I heard it in his voice. “And how is that a terrible thought to have?”

“I should be wishing you were still on _Voyager_ , leading our crew. But I can’t seem to make myself.”

“I see,” he replied in that warm, steady voice.

“Isn’t that terrible?” I asked.

“No,” he said calmly.

“But --”

He interrupted. “No. I would never have left you here.” He spoke matter-of-factly, as if we were discussing the weather.

“You would never have … but if I’d stayed on the ship, I would have died.” I was confused.

“Yes, that’s true,” he agreed patiently. “The ship would have left. I would have stayed. Regardless.”

I pulled back to look at him. “Don’t be ridiculous, Chakotay. I would have ordered you to go.”

“And I would have disobeyed that order.” He wasn’t smiling, but his face was so soft, so open.

That’s when I realized what he was saying. “You aren’t arguing with me, are you? You’re just … telling the truth. What would have happened.”

Now he smiled. “That’s right.”

“Huh.” I rested against him again, nonplussed. “When did you figure all this out?”

“There was nothing to figure out, Kathryn. You were sick; you had to stay here. I was staying too.”

A suspicion bloomed in my foggy brain. “You _do_ have the virus, don’t you?”

“Oh yes. The doctor said so. That made it simpler, I suppose. No pointless arguments with anyone.”

I had nothing to say in response. We danced on, if that slow sway and shuffle can be called a dance, and my thoughts wandered, then stilled, resting in the warmth and security of his arms, lulled almost to sleep by his heartbeat, for all that we were upright and moving.

Two songs later a closely-held fear broke loose deep within me. By the time it bubbled up into words, though, it seemed weightless, a feather floating idly through my thoughts. “What if we end up hating each other?”

“Why would that happen?” he answered, if a question can answer a question. Somehow, that one did, for -- dancing with him -- I found that I couldn’t think of a single reason.

I let my sigh of contentment tell him he’d won the argument, won the day, all the days and nights to come. Eventually, he led me to bed, unzipped me, undid me, soft and slow and gentle … but in my heart, we danced all night.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. I invite and appreciate feedback, including:
> 
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End file.
